


Soul-Bound

by Ophelia_Black



Series: Midzel Week 2020 [2]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Gen, fellas is it gay to give your soul to another girl?, midzel week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27129667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ophelia_Black/pseuds/Ophelia_Black
Summary: When the princess of light sacrifices herself for the princess of shadows, Midna both curses her and grieves for her, but not all is as it seems.Written for Midzel Week 2020. Prompt: Chains
Relationships: Midna & Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Series: Midzel Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980200
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	Soul-Bound

She’s gone. The princess is dead.

No matter how many times Midna repeats the words to herself, they never feel any less crushing, the weight of the shock and guilt on the edge of overwhelming her entirely. _Why would she do this? There’s no hope for my world, it’s too late, but why give up on Hyrule? What could possibly make my life more important than hers?_ It’s all she can do to guide Link to the sacred grove, to follow Zelda’s final instructions and remove the curse on the boy who had done so much for her. She tries to focus on her mission, but the single-minded intensity that had consumed her for so long, had bolstered her when hopelessness and despair had threatened her, is gone.

Midna is certain that Link had to have noticed her silence, and finds herself glad that he is trapped as a wolf. Just now, she likes him better this way, unable to fix her with his awful, pitying gaze while she sits on his back, unable to offer words of comfort with hands turned to paws.

It is a selfish thought, surely, but what thought of hers isn’t? All these humans ever did was give, and all Midna did was take and take and take and take until they had nothing left, and even then they gave away the very air in their lungs and damn if she didn’t take that too. And for what? Hyrule had been cleansed, its pall of shadows lifted, but monsters still skulked the fields in broad daylight, and their monarch is dead. _She is dead. Say it. Zelda’s dead, and she died so you could live._

So… she lives. She owes it to Zelda, doesn’t she?

It’s too late for her to treat the princess the way she deserves, not just with the respect she’s owed as royalty (as _fellow_ royalty, remember?), but as a person who had done her no harm, who tried to make the best of an impossible situation, and who had been an entirely too convenient target for Midna’s misplaced scorn. A princess who had failed to protect her people, who was hidden away while they cried out for her; oh, she knew all too well which of them that describes. No, she cannot make it up to Zelda, but it isn’t too late for Link, who had borne no small portion of her contempt as well, and with even less cause. She glances down at the wolf, hesitating with a hand outstretched before giving him a few pats on the head. She’s not certain that he notices, but his tail wags once, and it’s good enough.

He carries her into a heavily wooded area, and the air grows thick around them. An unnaturally shaped stone awaits him in the clearing, and Link howls. Admittedly, the sound is far from pleasant, but the tune he garbles through is… familiar. Yes, something deeply familiar, something comforting, welcoming. Midna frowns. She had never heard this song before in her life, and yet… she has known it for hundreds of years, hasn’t she? This is _her song_ , it’s calling her name, like a parent calling home a wayward child, red cheeked and breathless from playing.

Though the tune tries its best to soothe her, gentle as a lullaby, it leaves Midna rankled and on edge. Magic is a subject she had studied for years, its presence innate to her tribe and its properties immutable, well documented, and understood for generations beyond count. None of this mystic bullshit, no, it’s a hard science, as it ought to be, and the feeling of being gripped by a power beyond her understanding and control makes her close her eyes and crouch down. She clings tighter to Link, grounding herself in the familiarity of his presence, of the feeling of his fur gripped in her tiny hands. _Whatever this power is, perhaps this Master Sword can break it upon me, as well._ Another selfish thought, but what more could anyone expect of her?

Link meanders through the forest, chasing after a gangly boy in a grinning mask. He seems more playful than threatening, and Midna wonders why Link bothers to play along at all, until she sees the faint thread of familiarity when their eyes meet. _Do they feel the same way looking at each other as I did hearing that song? What is this place?_ She shivers, the short tune still ringing in her ears as the wolf and the puppet master gambol through the ancient woods.

When the masked boy is done with his game, he opens the way out of the grove and into a clearing, vanishing with a giggle. Link eagerly makes his way through, but when they come to a wall and a large Triforce on the ground, Midna is consumed by both apprehension and elation. Again, Link howls her song, but only a small portion of it, she learns. Long after he falls silent, she hears the notes continue through the rest of the melody, and when she closes her eyes, she feels as though she’s at home. Midna thinks of her mother humming her to sleep, her father ruffling her hair, her guardian smiling down at her with her hands protectively on her shoulders, the fairy boy from her dreams crossing the kingdom to find her. Link is moving beneath her, leaping across platforms, but her hands tighten in his fur automatically and the movement is hardly worthy of her notice, not when she feels someone calling for her again. They speak no name, but she realizes that it wouldn’t be hers anyway.

 _No, it’s not me they’re looking for. Those aren’t my parents, and I never had a guardian. And the kid… that’s not my Link, no, I don’t know these people. I’ve never heard this song before._ But someone has heard it, someone is heeding its call. The Twilight Princess is wide awake and painfully alert, but someone is stirring, rising from a very deep sleep. _The kind of sleep where the sun is high and then suddenly it’s gone, and you wonder if more than one day has passed while you napped._ Yes, that’s it, Midna knows that feeling, doesn’t she? She knows that feeling, and she knows this family, and she knows this melody.

And Midna knows who is waking up, whose soul has been bound to hers, who forged a connection to her stronger than any chain. Who poured their life’s energy into her, who held her hand while she lay on the knife’s edge of death, whose memories had been carried across a hundred lifetimes and into hers. Who she had watched fade away, who is surely dead… but isn’t.

 _Zelda?_ she gasps, and there is no verbal response, but instead she is bathed in a gentle glow, as though sitting before a dying fire. The sensation is weak, but warming, and she hadn’t realized how very cold she had been until now. _She’s alive, you’re alive! I – I’m so glad…_ She feels as though she ought to apologize, to take the chance to put right the careless cruelty of her actions before it’s taken away again, but the words seem hollow. If Midna really cared, really wanted make it up to the princess, to make her sacrifice worthwhile, shouldn’t her actions speak for her?

_Zelda… Thank you. I won’t let you down._


End file.
